Quality of educational YouTube videos related to pancreatic cancer: Analysis of patient-focused and NCI-designated cancer center videos.
Authors: Alexander Didier, Lauren Fang, Jennifer Stiene, Shabab Ud Din, Caleb Spencer, Danae M. Hamouda
Journal: Journal of Clinical Oncology (2023)

756 Background: The incidence of pancreatic cancer among young adults has sharply risen over the past decade. Young adults often utilize online educational media, such as YouTube videos, for information about their disease. These may be subject to a high degree of bias and misinformation; previous analyses have demonstrated low quality of other cancer-related YouTube videos. Thus, we sought to determine if patients can rely on YouTube videos for accurate information about pancreatic cancer, and we compared relevant YouTube videos with those published by NCI-designated cancer centers (CCs). Methods: We designed a novel search query and inclusion/exclusion criteria based on published studies evaluating YouTube user tendencies. These criteria were used to identify videos most likely watched by patients, which composed our “Patient-Focused” (PF) group. We compared PF videos with those uploaded by CCs by manually searching each CC’s affiliated YouTube and applying the same inclusion/exclusion criteria. Data were summarized by descriptive statistics. Videos were evaluated based on two well-known criteria, the DISCERN and JAMA tools, as well as a tool published by Sahin et al to analyze the contents of colorectal cancer videos. A score of ≥ 6 on the Sahin scale correlated with high quality information. We used t-test and Chi-squared test to analyze differences between groups. Results: 39 videos met inclusion criteria within the PF sample and 19 videos within the CC sample, total sample of 58 videos. The PF sample had mean Sahin scores of 4.24 ± 2.21, DISCERN scores of 2.15 ± 0.47, and JAMA scores of 1.77 ± 0.60. CC videos had mean Sahin scores of 3.84 ± 2.70, DISCERN scores of 2.25 ± 0.63, and JAMA scores of 2.00 ± 0.0. Perceived speakers’ ethnicity was 75% White (n=77), 21% Asian (n=21), and 4% Hispanic (n=4). There were no Black speakers. Most videos uploaded were fair or poor quality. 16.4% (n=27) were of average or high quality by the Sahin criteria, with 1 video receiving a perfect score. 9.6% (n=5) and 90.4% (n=47) were average or high quality by DISCERN and JAMA criteria, respectively. 8.6% (n=5) of videos discussed palliative care and 10.3% (n=6) discussed staging. Independent samples t-test revealed no significant differences between PF and CC videos for the Sahin criteria (p=0.429) and DISCERN criteria (p=0.387). The mean JAMA score was higher for CCs (2.0 ± 0.0) than the PF group (1.8 ± 0.6) (p=0.001). Chi-squared test revealed that CC and PF videos had similar speaker ethnic diversity (p=0.381). Conclusions: Educational pancreatic cancer YouTube videos demonstrate low to moderate quality information with limited speaker ethnic diversity. Given ongoing trends in the spread of misinformation through social media, CCs and other patient educators should be mindful of their role in producing high quality, comprehensive information for patients and their caregivers.